A Country Romance

Another tale of city girl coming back to her country town and falling for local farmer boy. Nothing original, nothing offensive, nothing relevant.

FILMING: Some views of the countryside are pleasant and inviting, probably the better part of the entire content.

SCRIPT: rather generic and bland, with little or no drama.

CHARACTERS: Cute the little girl, the others have no depth, little vitality, and no endearing qualities.

ACTING: subpar across the field. Jonathan Bennett appears ill-cast in the role of what should have been a rugged countryman. He seems uneasy and comes out unconvincing. Definitely far from his best. Alix Angelis is pretty, but her acting is wooden, almost stereotyped. Half of the time, she is seen on close-ups with goo-goo eyes and a faintly lost expression that, I suppose, was intended to show how smitten she is from the first moment on.

DIRECTING: Probably the cause of all above detracting elements. It must be, as I have seen the same actors do better in other production.

Overall, a production that lives no marks, rather insipid and forgettable.

The plot was not original. The main character lived on this farm, but was clueless as to what went on. She was so overly dramatic that it was sooooo annoying. Her acting was so over dramatic. It was kind of irritating to listen to her. Then there was no chemistry between her and the male lead. But then he's not a real man anyway, which might explain it. The little girl was awesome. She was the best actress of them all.

The only way this movie got five stars is for being family friendly, not that the stars are.

It's possible it was the writing that was terrible. But the actors/actresses didn't help.

I chose to watch this movie because I have seen Jonathan Bennett in other movies. This was not one of his best. I was very surprised to see that it was a recent production - 2021. I was sure is was one of his earlier movies.

Acting by all the actors was second rate in my opinion and I am usually pretty forgiving. The niece was the exception, as I generally think children add something to movies.

The positive about the movie was that it was a clean wholesome family show. I am okay with predictable "Hallmark-type" movies but the acting was poor. There was no chemistry between the actors. Overall it was disappointing.

The other reviewers are pretty much echoing my sentiments about this film. The lead actress is just awful, although it's hard to make to like a character who is so dumb about harvesting grapes that she Googles "graping" to find out what to do. Jonathan Bennett, who was the main reason for watching, doesn't seem to be working all that hard. And the plot holes are ridiculous. The dad doesn't have farmhands he hires on a regular basis to harvest the grapes? Who puts a hotel in the middle of a vineyard? The acting, save for the niece, is BAD. I know films like these aren't supposed to be great cinema, but that's not an excuse to have a lame story, weak actors and terrible pacing.

There are just too many things that don't make sense. To be fair, I was multi-tasking while watching, so I could have missed some things.

1. The dad goes on vacation during harvest time and makes no arrangements to pick the crops. All the neighbors have to come in and save the day.

2. The dad asks her to go review the sale papers, however, when he comes back, she is still in charge - and making all the decisions.

3. She grew up on a farm and doesn't even know the basic lingo or anything about farming what so ever. So the neighbors always came around to help, but apparently, they didn't make their able bodied kid help. And they must not have every spoke about their livelihood in front of said kid.

4. The main character said she left shortly after her mom died, so she never learned anything about the farm. She also said she left when she was about Mabel's age (12). Again - she should have known the basics of farming and where did she go and who did she live with? Her dad stayed on the farm.

5. Do you really need to do a fashion show when buying clothes to pick crops?

6. She had on as much make-up as a clown right after getting out of the shower.

It's all in the details!